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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24648265">entwined</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeggarWhoRides/pseuds/BeggarWhoRides'>BeggarWhoRides</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Adventure Zone (Podcast)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst with a Happy Ending, Blupjeans (mentioned) - Freeform, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Sort of? - Freeform, Spoilers for Episode: e060-066 The Stolen Century Parts 1-7, Spoilers for Episode: e067-069 Story and Song Parts 1-3, sibling bonds</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 02:55:41</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,472</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24648265</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeggarWhoRides/pseuds/BeggarWhoRides</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Here's the thing about being a twin:</p>
<p>You are never not a twin.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Lup &amp; Taako (The Adventure Zone)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>65</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>entwined</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Spoilers through the end of TAZ: Balance</p>
<p>Warnings for: mentions of violence and sex, nothing explicit or beyond where the podcast goes.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Taako doesn’t remember much about his childhood. </p>
<p>Which is <i>fine,</i> honestly, cha’boy doesn’t exactly need the vivid details of scraping and stealing to barely get by. He knows the shape of it all, and really, that’s all he needs.</p>
<p>He knows the shape of it, and that’s all he needs, even if looking too closely at it leaves him with both a headache and an aching settled somewhere deeper than his bones. He remembers stealing medicine when he wasn’t sick. He remembers shaking with fever, and the feeling of another person pouring water in his mouth, reaching out to comfort that person. His hand remembers holding another hand perfectly. When he cooks alone, he finds himself making way too much for one person, the second portion way too spicy for anyone sane.</p>
<p>None of it makes sense, because he’s alone, he’s always been alone hasn’t he? Taako good out here, wand outstretched, but never good at watching his own back because--</p>
<p>Because--</p>
<p>There’s a reason. He knows it. He can’t hold onto it.</p>
<p>What he holds onto is a feeling of rightness, a wholeness from that awful childhood  that he just can’t grasp, no matter what he tries to fill the aching deep inside. It might just be him, really. Maybe he’s just incomplete.</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p> --------------------------------</p>
</div><p>When she comes back to herself, she isn’t herself, she isn’t a being, she isn’t any sort of creature on any plane. </p>
<p>She’s formless, bleeding into the nothing and the nothing bleeding back in, and she’s reaching reaching <i>reaching,</i> every part of her screaming for her friends--for Barry--for Taako.</p>
<p>The first thing she feels is all-swallowing terror, because no one answers.</p>
<p>It takes years, so many cycles of this planet turning under blue skies and a single sun, but Lup forms herself again. </p>
<p>
  <i>Your name is Lup. You named yourself.</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i></i>
</p>
<p>
  <i></i>
</p>
<p>Your other half and heart is Taako.</p>
<p>Your love is Barry Bluejeans. </p>
<p>You’re an awesome fucking genius, because you created a staff capable of containing a lich.</p>
<p>
  <i>You’re a bit of a fucking idiot, because you are the lich inside the staff.</i>
</p>
<p>The black-curtained space is far from infinite, but it’s her entire world, so she makes do. She comes up with idea after idea for new spells, new fashion lines, a long long list of magical artifacts she should’ve made instead of this umbra staff.</p>
<p>A much longer list of things she should’ve made other than the Phoenix Fire Gauntlet.</p>
<p>She talks to the curtains, because that’s less pathetic than talking to herself.</p>
<p>“Barry and I are gonna need two weeks--three weeks off when I get back, because if you think I’m <i>not</i> going to bang that gorgeous man into the next plane of existence, you’ve got several other things coming. It is going to be <i>fucking epic epic fucking,</i> holy shit, that man is never going to walk the same again--”</p>
<p>“Magnus is going to <i>blubber</i> and it’s going to be brilliant. It’ll be like that planet with all dogs, but even worse, because he is just the softest man beneath all those muscles. Taako and I are never going to let him live it down.”</p>
<p>“Lucy’s got spare notebooks and pens, yeah? Definitely asking her for some when I get back. Taako’s gonna have a field day with that, me willingly going for some nerd shit, but I would go undead again for something to do other than look at you ugly-ass curtains--yeah, I called you ugly, what are you gonna do about it--”</p>
<p>“So I can sense things beyond and around the staff now! Very cool, pretty badass of me to figure that out, except the first thing I saw was my skeleton! Which, y’know, fine, cool, a whole new level of goth, but--jeezy creezy, I don’t usually hang around after a death for long enough to <i>see my bones.</i> Shit. <i>Shit.”</i> </p>
<p>“...I’ve been here a long time, haven’t I.”</p>
<p>“This whole never-changing thing you curtains have going is really harshing my vibes.”</p>
<p>“I just want to see Taako. I just want to know he’s alright. Is that so much--is that really <i>so fucking much</i>--shit--he’s my <i>brother,</i> he’s all I’ve had, <i>please, <b>please--”</b></i> </p>
<p> </p>

<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>--------------------------------</p>
</div><p> </p>
<p>And then Taako comes.</p>
<p>Taako and Magnus and Merle, and she loves Magnus and Merle but she needs Taako, she’s willing to bet anything Taako needs her too, plus Taako’s brilliant, he’s going to figure this out in no time--</p>
<p>But he doesn’t.</p>
<p>Something is Wrong. </p>
<p>The way they’re talking to each other, like they aren’t family in everything but blood, is about 100 years out of date. Eventually they see Lucretia, only she’s old and introducing herself, and the gnome tailing her like a duckling cannot be Capn’port, and <i>where is Barry?</i></p>
<p>“Taako, something’s not right--listen, <i>listen,</i> none of this is supposed to be this way. You’ve got to find Barry, okay, because he’s <i>family,</i> Taako, we’re all family, but something’s gone so wrong, Taako, please--” </p>
<p>It doesn’t work, but she keeps trying.</p>
<p>She talks to Taako, and she plans, she builds her power, and she meditates.</p>
<p>“It’s okay, Taako. I know you don’t know it, but I’m here. I told you I’d be back! And I am. I’m here. I’ve got you. I love you, Taako.” </p>
<p>He doesn’t answer. But it’s easier to close her eyes and rest, feeling herself secure against her brother’s back.</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p> --------------------------------</p>
</div><p>In Wonderland, Lup screams.</p>
<p>Taako is hurting and she can feel it, this isn’t a magic thing but a twin thing, or maybe a Taako-and-Lup thing, and none of that is important because <i>Taako is hurting</i> and she can’t get to him.</p>
<p>So she screams, and screams, and shreds the curtains on the walls. The room never changes size. There is nothing but more curtains. </p>
<p>She screams until she should be spitting up blood, tears up curtains until she shouldn’t have fingernails, but the rules are different here. Taako is the one who needs to be here, safe and insulated and unchanging. He’s never been the one to run in. He’s always been terrible at watching his back.</p>
<p>He needs her and she isn’t there and she’s going to die from the agony of it.</p>
<p>And then a fight, and a figure drops in.</p>
<p>“Are you the one who’s been hurting my brother out there?”</p>
<p>The rules are different here. She can’t use magic in this curtained space. But she has her hands, and her teeth, and she’s never needed more than herself to protect her brother.</p>
<p>“I’m gonna kill you now.” </p>
<p>And she does.</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p> --------------------------------</p>
</div><p>Taako <i>finally</i> figures it out.</p>
<p>She’s gonna give him shit forever for taking this long.</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p> --------------------------------</p>
</div><p>The apartment is full of the smell of Auntie’s good turkey. Lup could be helping set the table, or shaking Barry out of his research to remind him that <i>everyone’s coming over for dinner, close your book and come act like a person for a bit.</i> Instead, she’s perched on the counter of the too-small kitchen, harassing Taako while he works on dessert. </p>
<p>“Jesus fuckin’--stick your finger in the batter one more time, Lulu, I swear--” </p>
<p>Lup cackles, licking her fingers clean. “This tastes like dog shit.” </p>
<p>“Yeah, because it’s <i>not done.</i> Heavens to fuck, it was way easier to cook when you were an umbrella.” </p>
<p>“Yeah, but you missed me.” Taako actually stops stirring for a second. “Holy shit, you missed me!”</p>
<p>“I didn’t know you existed, doofus.” </p>
<p>“Then what was the pause for, dingus?” </p>
<p>Taako stops again, not looking at her. </p>
<p>“T…” Lup starts, reminding herself that this Taako had a whole life where she wasn’t at his side, that she can actually cross lines with him now.</p>
<p>“I think I did, actually,” he says, and Lup shuts up. “Not like--I didn’t know who you were, obviously. But I knew there was something missing. The whole time, I knew. I didn’t know it was you I was looking for. But I was always looking for you, Lulu.” </p>
<p>Taako is frozen, staring so intensely at the batter. Lup slides off the counter to press herself against his back, chin resting on his shoulder.</p>
<p>“You were always my brother, T. Even that whole time. There’s nothing in any universe that can take that from us.” </p>
<p>“I, uh. I love you, Lulu.” </p>
<p>“I love you too.” </p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p> --------------------------------</p>
</div><p>Underneath two setting suns and a purple sky, a pair of twins are born.</p>
<p>One will become the greatest transmutation wizard ever known, brilliant beyond compare and caring beyond what he will admit. One will become a phoenix, impossibly powerful, transcendent, unwilling to let even death stop her from protecting those she loves.</p>
<p>They are going to save worlds.</p>
<p>But for tonight, they are laid in the same cradle, mirroring each other. One reaches out and the other grabs on.</p>
<p>Their hands fit together perfectly.</p>
<p>Together, they rest.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Sometimes you spend your whole life protecting your twin brother, then COVID means you haven't seen him in months, and you gotta project onto some characters played by some good good boys.</p>
<p>Thank you so much for reading! Please leave a kudos or comment if you enjoyed &lt;3 Stay safe, stay well, remember Black Lives Matter.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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